Protective equipment is commonly provided to personnel in various organizations such as the army, fire fighting services, police and Special Forces etc. The equipment currently provided is primarily aimed at protecting various parts of the user's body when the user is found to be in a situation that can cause injury to the user. For example, protective garments are provided to fire fighters to assist in mitigating the effects of heat on the user's body. Also, protective garments are provided to assist in avoiding injury, such as cuts, bruises etc, to various extremities of the body, such as the legs or arms for example.
Protecting the legs, and in particular the shins and the knees, is particularly important in situations where the user is required to move over or through obstacles, including climbing and scrambling over the obstacles. For example, fire fighting services may be required to quickly enter into or exit out of a building via a window in order to rescue a third party or themselves. Also, army and police personnel may be required to move quickly over, through or under various obstacles: in pursuit of someone, to avoid being harmed, or to take advantage of a situation. At these times, it is not at the forefront of the minds of these persons to carefully utilise professional climbing skills in order to successfully climb or avoid injury, but rather to move as quickly as possible to from ‘A’ to ‘B’. Thus, injury can be caused by persons attempting to scramble over door jambs, window frames with broken glass still attached, walls or fences with intrusion prevention measures attached, etc. Intrusion prevention measures may include, for example, barbed wire, shards of glass etc, that are attached to the barrier (wall, fence etc) to assist in preventing intruders from climbing over the barriers. The present invention aims to overcome, or at least alleviate, some or all of the afore-mentioned problems, or to at least provide the public with a useful choice.